The present invention is concerned with a power distribution appparatus of the type comprising a power distribution rail associated with adaptors operative to feed current to the rail, and to pick up current from the rail. Such apparatuses are in themselves known in the prior art and are employed, for example, to permit lamps or other electrically energizable appliances to be located at any desired position along an elongated power distribution rail.
Power distribution systems of the general type discussed above conventionally employ a rail taking the form of an open-bottom channel-shaped metallic section each side of which includes a plurality of webs which are longitudinally spaced from one another to define elongated ducts along the opposing sides of the rail having elongated conductors supported therein in electrically insulated relation to the rail for electrical contact with the adaptor. The webs further define elongated support channels along the interior opposing sides of the rail which are spaced from the ducts and which are adapted to receive supporting clips comprising a portion of an adaptor, the support channels and clips being so positioned relative to one another that, when the clips engage the support channels contacts on the adaptor are properly located for electrical contact with the conductors supported by the rail. Each web on one side of the rail extends toward a corresponding web on one side of the rail extends toward a corresponding web on the other side of the rail, and the facing edges of each pair of corresponding webs are laterally spaced from one another to define an open region extending along the center line of the rail into which the adaptor may be inserted.
Various types of adaptors have been suggested heretofore for cooperation with a rail of the type described. In general, the prior art adaptors have been so designed that they must be inserted into the rail from one end of the rail and thereafter moved along the rail longitudinally to a desired position. This type of operation is inconvenient.
It is the primary object of the present invention to provide a different form of adaptor structure, capable of use to feed current to an electrical contact rail, which adaptor is so arranged that it may be inserted at any desired point within the rail and mated with only the correct rail conductors, and wherein the adaptor is far simpler in design, more easily locked in a correct operating position, and capable of being manufactured in smaller sizes than adaptors suggested heretofore.